“Expect?” Mrs. Brashear stiffened in defense of the institution. “You have no place yet?”
He answered not her question, but her doubt. “As far as that is concerned, I’ll pay in advance.”
“It isn’t the financial consideration,” she began loftily—“alone,” she added more honestly. “But to take in a total stranger—”
Banneker leaned forward to her. “See here, Mrs. Brashear; there’s nothing wrong about me. I don’t get drunk. I don’t smoke in bed. I’m decent of habit and I’m clean. I’ve got money enough to carry me. Couldn’t you take me on my say-so? Look me over.”
Though it was delivered with entire gravity, the speech provoked a tired and struggling smile on the landlady’s plain features. She looked.
“Well?” he queried pleasantly. “What do you think? Will you take a chance?”
That suppressed motherliness which, embodying the unformulated desire to look after and care for others, turns so many widows to taking lodgers, found voice in Mrs. Brashear’s reply:
“You’ve had a spell of sickness, haven’t you?”
“No,” he said, a little sharply. “Where did you get that idea?”
“Your eyes look hot.”